Abuse of secrecy is not the same thing as necessary secrecy
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Undergroundrailroadsmall2.jpg/1024px-Undergroundrailroadsmall2.jpg

> If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying to make the negro anything else than "the submissive knee-bender" (which the Almighty declared he should be), by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension, and at the same time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away.[4]

In a debate with another blogger (@fourth) I was given a question which I deemed to be a false narrative and ill defined. The question was: "Do you not accept the idea of balancing goals, for example, privacy and protection, with other goals?".  I think the proposer of this question may have meant it in a different way than I interpreted it but in my response I brought up the notion that radical transparency actually can lead to human rights abuses if wisdom generation isn't in place. In a town filled with ignorance under a regime of radical transparency then it is certainly possible that human rights can be abused under the rule of law, using radical transparency as an instrument (weapon) of oppression.

Radical transparency as a weapon of oppression
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To provide an example scenario of when transparency was used as a weapon of oppression and when secrecy was the defender of human rights; I applied the example of the underground railroad. According to US history the underground railroad was a network of SECRET safe houses where slaves (fugitives) could hide from the government. Those who took the side of defending human rights in this situation were committing a crime themselves and were on the wrong side of the law. Transparency would mean that the locations of these safe houses (and the human property) must be revealed to everyone in town. We can see instantly looking back at the history books that to do that would be to subject these humans to human rights abuses (slavery) and that this while legal (even constitutional) is something which a large percentage of the nation even back then did not agree with.

> If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night--separated into families, each family having its own house--not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed--more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.[6]

We probably have heard of the expression: "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear". Drapetomania was considered to be a mental illness. The birth of political psychiatry and legal persecution began by applying authoritarian sources (the holy book, or the book of psychiatry) to judge other people. In other words, if a slave were to run away then under the term drapetomania to not want to be enslaved (to want to be free) is to be mentally ill. This shows that during this time and in these examples not only was the law used as a weapon of oppression but so was psychiatry.


Secrecy as the necessary defender of human rights
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Secrecy is often necessary. Secrecy in the case of safe houses for slaves fleeing persecution for example was a matter of life and death. 

> Some buildings, such as the Crenshaw House in far southeastern Illinois, are known sites where free blacks were sold into slavery, known as the "Reverse Underground Railroad". Under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, when suspected fugitives were seized and brought to a special magistrate known as a commissioner, they had no right to a jury trial and could not testify in their own behalf. Technically, they were guilty of no crime. The marshal or private slave-catcher needed only to swear an oath to acquire a writ of replevin for the return of property.


Wisdom is a requirement for transparency to not become a weapon of oppression
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The fact is, I'm not entirely against the idea of transparency. In fact I would prefer transparency if I could know that the transparency will not merely become a tool of oppression. The only way to have responsible transparency is to have a wise population. The problem is that this wisdom usually does not exist. If we look back in history we can see instances where the balance swung toward extreme transparency and what do we see? Even if we look at the current history, even in the wonderful United States, we can still see ignorance. A more transparent society by itself does not make a wise society.

For this reason I think the focus on building wisdom (in the emergent peer to peer way) is necessary. Are we there yet? Not even close. In fact, in 2018 I see society (and social media) guided mostly by disinformation, propaganda, and deliberately encouraged ignorance. In that particular environment my expectation (which I hope is wrong) is that any radical transparency will merely result in a weapon of oppression. What could that weapon of oppression look like? It could be a machine which encourages people to expose other people for profit. It could be a machine which encourages people to generate scandals, controversy, or to discredit others. There is no guarantee that the facts will be checked, or that the quality of content will be high, or that the sources will be verifiable and trustworthy, just because there is more transparency. It is true that on the blockchain you can verify transactions, you can prove you came up with an idea (because your blockchain signature shows it), but in my opinion none of this is likely to produce a better world if the quality of decision making itself doesn't scale. More mistakes, more accountability, more transparency, but no indication that there will be anything learned from it.


I could be wrong about everything I express in this post. Feel free to debate with me and share your opinion. If I'm wrong, and I have better information, my opinion can always be changed.